Duendes found himself locked in battle with Number 2 of the Veridahn as his team engaged with the Titan Orcs. Number 2 stared at Duendes, who was clad in living shadows. Duendes, Program Umbra: The user has full control over any darkness they can perceive. They can use that darkness to take physical forms, only limited by their imagination.

Number 2 frowned. This was an even match-up for him given their current situation. They were surrounded by darkness, given only that the emergency lights were on. The tight quarters didn't make things better. However, he could control the earth itself, and they were underground.

It was lucky that he took the initiative to fight him first. The others would have been severely injured or dead by this point. There was another issue; Number 2 sighed and saw his breath freezing over. The woman standing behind Duendes was just as annoying, if not more so. The rest of them, while annoying in their own right, were much to worry about.

"It would be fine if we weren't so cramped." One of the Orcs added,.

"I suppose I can make some breathing room." The Orc spoke. He placed his axe on his shoulder. He went to perform a mighty swing, but chains on darkness and then frost covered his arms. However, he just laughed and continued his swing.

"Take cover!" Duendes shouted.

The power of Number 2's swing caused devastation through the wide hallway. The walls were reinforced to handle the power of Chasers and Persequions but were blown wide open. When the dust cleared, the Titan Orcs let out a hearty yell in excitement as the hallway was much more fit for their wide bodies to move around now. Their boisterous roar died down when they looked at the Chasers and Persequions.

They expected them to be blown away. However, all they saw was a tiny feminine figure standing in front of them. Pocket let out tiny coughs as the dust settled.

"Oh my, that was close." Their voice was filled with whimsy as they giggled. Number 2 scoffed and commanded,

"Squash it." Two of the Titan Orcs ran towards Pocket. One with a large hammer, the other with a large mace. They smashed their weapons down on the tiny figure, only for their blows to clash against a wall of space. Pocket giggled, and Number 2's eyes widened.

"Move!!" It was too late. The Titan Orc with the Mace had its head bisected, with a bubble of space engulfing his head and disappearing. The other wielding the hammer barely managed to move away as a portion of his left side was bisected. He let out a grunt of pain as he held his side, holding his innards in place. The Veridahn uniform mended itself, and in the process, it mended his wound.

"That one is troublesome." Number 2 muttered as Pocket opened their pocket and the other Chasers and Persequions leaped from her "storage."

"Pocket, you were told not to engage. You could have gotten yourself killed." Duendes said.

Pocket was a strange case. Their ability was astonishing and frightening, but they had little to no control over it when not being used for its original purpose of creating storage spaces. They had not yet perfected their use for offensive and defensive purposes. Using it in such a way was like rolling a dice.

"It's fine… I'm really lucky. Plus, I have nothing else to do." Pocket giggled. They had already collected all of the dead bodies in the area.

"Right…" Duendes sighed as he looked over at the headless Orc and then at their leader.

"Bah, unlucky bastard. And they made themselves useful." Number 2 said, not really caring about the lad's death. The other Orcs nodded in agreement. Just as he was going to order the attack, the ground began to shake.

"What the hell is this?" Number 2 shouted and looked over at the Chasers only to see the confused looks on their faces. They looked over to their left to see the body of their dead comrade begin to rise off the ground. The headless orc picked up their mace. Number 2 smiled as he knew what that meant. Duendes and the others had a look of shock on their faces, as they understood as well.

"They freed him… What happened to Selistar?" Mawu asked out loud,

"Lord Cefketa is probably having his way with him." Number 2 laughed at her question.

Mawu did not fall for his provocation, because whether they freed the Bone Collector or not, it did not matter; as long as they reduced his supply of bodies, which they had, he was just a relatively strong combatant.

"This changes nothing," Duendes said,

"Is that right?" Number 2's tusks curved into a grin as the ground beneath them began to crack, and bodies began to emerge.

"What the hell is happening?" Mawu took a step back in shock. As an army of undead Persequions began to surround the Titan Orcs. One of those Undead then spoke,

"The Twins gave me an upgrade." The Bone Collector spoke through the undead.

"Fuck… Overclock!" Duendes cursed. The undead then began to swarm Duende's group. Darkness engulfed the area as pillars of shadows tore through the undead heading towards Duende's group. However, it didn't matter, as those pieces of flesh and bone mended themselves and charged again.

One of the undead turned towards Number 2.

"The Twins said to start phase 2."

Number 2 nodded his head. He raised his foot to stomp the ground as a system appeared on the bottom of his foot. As he slammed his foot against the ground, a pillar of earth rocketed his group up into the ceiling. The ceiling began to split open as the group of Orc Titans disappeared into the ceiling.

"Dammit, we know how they got in now. He has better control of the earth than Bumi and Dust. We need to deal with these-"

Before Duendes could finish his statement, the ground began to shake once again. A large system appeared on the ground. The walls began to rumble and crack and spiked pillars jutted out.

"What the hell?" Duedes cursed as his body turned to shadow as the spike passed through his body. Mawu quickly formed an ice wall around the group to protect everyone else.

"What in the world is that?" Mawu asked as she looked at the system glowing on the ground; the undead ran towards them. Her eyes widened as she realized that whatever it was, it was still active.

"Wait, don't leave the ice barrier!!!" She shouted as one of the Chasers from her team jumped towards the undead Persequion heading towards them. But the moment he left the circle, he was impaled by a spike that came out of the walls again. The force of the spike burst them into red paste.

"Fuck, fuck!" Mawu shouted in frustration.

They had too little information on these creatures they were going up against. Were they just being used as test dummies? A frown stretched across her face. Everything in front of her was chaos; those undead coming their way were being slowed down by those spikes as well. Many of them are being destroyed and reformed. But those spikes also pinned them down.

Duendes held out his hand, and shadow pillars appeared trying to destroy the system on the ground. To their shock, the shadows destroyed the ground but passed through the system like it was an illusion.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Goddammit!! What the hell is that?" Duendes cursed as the Undead reached their encampment of ice. Mawu was silently studying everything that was happening. The spikes hadn't attacked them since the initial attack. They had been stationary, but now the spikes were attacking the undead. Mawu frowned and said,

"Duendes, I'll handle things here. You need to go for the main body. We also need to see how far this thing extends."

"Are you crazy? That's an army of undead, Persephone. How will you—" Duendes pleaded but was cut off.

"Exactly, undead. Look at them; they are bits of flesh hanging off bone and dry…" Mawu smirked.

"Alright… Pocket, let's go." Pocket giggled as she opened a pouch, and everyone put themself and the Duendes were sucked into it. Duendes grabbed Pocket by the waist. The two of them disappeared into the shadows. Mawu looked at the undead banging against her ice wall and wondered,

"You don't have a full grasp of your new power yet, do you?" Mawu asked.

These undead weren't using the abilities they had in life; they weren't using abilities at all. She knew that they had power beyond that of humans because they could actually cause cracks in her ice wall. But none used any abilities.

"Hmm, I wonder…" One of the undead spoke as lightning arched off its fingers, and it shot a blast of lightning that burst through the ice wall. Mawu tilted her head to the side to avoid the debris coming her way.

"So they could use their abilities, you just choose not to use them… what do you want?" Mawu asked,"

"To hold you down…" The Bone Collector's voice called out as the undead stood on all sides of her.

Mawu frowned; she was sure he had unleashed these undead all over the base, but he was oddly focused on her. At first, she thought it was to help the Orc Titans, but she was certain even without his help the Orcs would have fared fine on their own. Several things were odd.

"Phase 1 is to hold me down?" Mawu frowned.

"Yes… you are a natural calming force, very annoying if we want to cause chaos."

Mawu felt a shiver go down her spine.

"Zac and Ms. Chiba are truly a frightening pair." Mawu surmised.

They deduced that Devin would send Duende's team to quell the situation and already had a plan in motion to separate her from the others.

"You are also the person who will be the most annoying to deal with. Even as I am now."

"Really? High praise. Allow me not to disappoint your expectations. Overclock!" Her eyes glowed, and instantly the surrounding area exploded with ice spikes impaling every undead she could perceive.

"Burst…" Mawu gently said as she rapidly increased the temperature of the ice, causing an explosion. The explosion of ice reduced those undead to scattered pieces. She looked at the undead pulling themselves back together and chuckled.

"Ignite." She chanted. Those bits that tried to reform caught fire and were burnt to ashes. Mawu let out a sigh of relief. She always felt freer when she fought alone; she was much more suited for these types of encounters. The hall was clear except for the system floating above the ground that she could do nothing about.

"It causes the earth to attack anything that moves. Over a wide range." Mawu deduced this before she was still feeling the earthquake beneath her feet. She didn't know how far the system's influence reached, but it didn't matter. Mawu activated comms.

"How are things going?" Mawu asked,

"As bad as you would expect," Seren responded over comms.

Seren went on to describe the situation in full. That system covered most of the hideout. The most skilled Persequions and those who could use spatial abilities were evacuating the non-combatants out of the Headout. While the active bodies were working their way towards the arena. They had much more space for them to work with. The Persequion and Chasers that could control Earth did their best to guide the others through the chaos, the system created.

The only saving grace about this was that it somewhat held back the undead as well. But that did not outweigh the lives being lost, as they would just join the undead in turn. Mawu closed her eyes as she weighed her options and then said,

"Tell everyone, things are about to get a bit chilly."

"Roger that." Seren instantly understood Mawu's intentions and relayed her message.

The system controlled the earth to attack anything that moved. But she wondered if the earth's composition changed, would it still work? Mawu closed her eyes and in that moment, the ground froze over, and that freezing spread through the base.

A group of Persequions and Chasers ran through the base halls, fighting off the undead as best they could. The undead on themselves were a handful as they displayed abilities and strength nearly on par with some of their weakest members, and they had superior numbers. However, the earthen spikes they had to deal with, caused the most casualties to this point.

"Shit, make sure to burn the bodies before they resurrect. Dammit all." One of the Pesequions called out as a Chaser unleashed a torrent of flames on a Chaser that had just fallen to an earthen spike.

"Make sure to protect her. Otherwise, we're all dead!" The same Persequion shouted as he pointed towards Dust, who was in the middle of all this chaos doing her best to combat these earthen spikes. As soon as they got into a solid formation and were going to push forward, a blade of wind was launched by one of the Undead, catching the Blaze Chaser off guard. They were soon separated from their head.

"Dammit!" The Persequion next to the Blaze Chaser cursed as he kicked the body away before it could resurrect within their ranks. Moments later that same dead Chaser rose from the ground without its head.

"Fuck!" A chaser let out an exasperated shout. As they reached their wits' end, they felt a chill blow through the area. At that moment a cold snap rolled through the area, freezing the ground walls and ceiling. The system still tried to move the earth, but the spikes were moving at a noticeably lower rate of speed, to the point they no longer posed a threat.

"Crazy…" Dust let out a sigh of relief. But that relief was short-lived as they heard the sounds of more undead coming their way.

"We still have a ways to go, but at least we don't have to worry about the walls killing us." The Persequion smiled.

"Can you still help, or will you be deadweight?" They asked Dust,

"Hell of a way to thank someone who's been busting her ass to keep you alive… Overclock." Dust frowned as her eyes glowed and extended her hand out in front of her.

The frozen ground and ceiling closed down on the approaching undead, smashing down on them like a living maw. The maw of frozen earth opened to reveal the pulverized undead and a clear pathway.

"Frozen earth is still earth. Lead the way." The Persequion nodded their head, and they continued to make their way toward the arena.

The Tiny Tots found themselves in the lab that Heka lent to Dr. Hamilton to do her experiments. It was far larger than they could have imagined. It looked more like a sterile industrial warehouse. Each of them was in their own private pseudo-glass cells. Those cells cut off all forms of communication. Most of them were taking the time to meditate and fine-tune their abilities. Others… mostly Manic… only Manic, were trying his best not to bash his head into the wall from boredom. And he was failing miserably.

"I need to get out. I need to get out… I NEED TO GET OUT!" Manic chanted as he bashed his head against the glass wall in front of him while wearing a psionic helmet. Amaterasu, directly across from him on the other side of the room, giggled before closing her eyes again. She was in deep meditation, ignoring the violent shaking rocking the base. She then heard the gentle rapping on her cell wall and curiously opened one of her eyes to see Kenji standing there.

She leaped to her feet and pressed her palms against the glass. If she wasn't sure before, she was certain now. Zac was here. Amaterasu saw Kenji's mouth moving but could hear nothing he was saying. She motioned to her ear, trying to relay that fact to him. Kenji looked over his shoulder at Sage, standing in front of a console. Her voice then echoed into the cells.

"Hi, everyone. Are you guys ready to get out?" Sage's head snapped towards Manic's cell as she heard a loud bang. She couldn't hear what he was saying, but it was easy to pick up on his immense desire to get out. Sage looked over at The Conductor.

"Speak, Ken, what do you have to say?"

"What do you want from us?"

"To end this situation with as little loss of life as possible. We'll need your help." Sage said.

The Conductor let out a relieved sigh. He was dreading if Zac wanted to destroy the entirety of Heka. He agreed they needed reform, but complete annihilation was out of the question. Especially since the Chasers had decided to reintegrate themselves into Heka.

"And how do you plan on accomplishing that?" The conductor asked again.

"We are to locate Seren and deliver her to Sensei," Sage answered.

"And you don't need to worry about your kill codes. The twins have made gifts for everyone." Sage reached into her cloak and pulled out a thin bracelet.

"As long as you wear this, it will scramble the commands of your kill code. So, are you with us?"

The Conductor closed his eyes as he thought through all of his options. If things went south, it could affect the vision of the bigger picture. However, if they didn't interfere, Zac could destroy everything to get what he wanted. The Conductor opened his eyes and looked over towards Shango's cell. Shango shrugged, signifying he would follow the conductor's lead on this.

"Gear us up."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.